actias-android - Tumblr blog

[actias-android]

Admittedly furry circles share a ton of overlap but even so, the comfiest place I've ever discussed being nonhuman is the furry art server that I'm a mod for, and not only do I feel fine discussing it there, almost every single active member including the moderation staff is some kind of nonhuman. The majority by far are not in the nonhuman community, and most of them don't even want to be; they're happy doing their unrelated thing and that's fine. But it's really striking to me how incredibly not rare it is, and I think people as a whole are a lot more chill about it than they ever have been.

Once again I mentioned nonhumanity on a completely unrelated Discord (this one isn't even furry so it's not even adjacent to nonhumanity in any way!) and several people chimed in out of nowhere to say, "Oh yeah, me too." None of them at all in any kind of therian/otherkin/alterhuman/nonhuman communities or anything, just people that would clock as normies about it, except nope they're not.

At this point I'm convinced the number of nonhumans outside the nonhuman communities is several orders of magnitude larger than the number of people inside and the most common way to experience it is totally casually, like an eye color. It's just another funny little thing about you, no big deal. A lot of them seem to feel that this approach makes them 'not really count' but nothing could be further from the truth. If casual nonhumanity is actually the norm like I'm starting to think, being super duper serial about it would make someone Nonhumans Georg, who spends 10000 hours a day dwelling on their identity and also they'd be an outlier who should therefore not be counted.

Except, obviously everyone counts if they say they do. But I think a lot more people could say they do without even breaking a sweat, if they wanted to.

[actias-android]

Right? When it's just presented as "I would totally have rather been a [whatever]" it's not even intimidating and everyone's like, "oh yeah, same except I'd be [their own answer]." SO many people are fully on board with that. I think there's a sense among old-school sorts that that's too casual and of course everyone would rather have been something cooler, but like...if someone says they'd rather have been born a different sex, we fully accept that as transgender, even if it's stated casually. If they're rather have been born a different species, I don't think that's different, you know?

But also I think it's the kind of thing that many people might not even see a need to come out about or join a community for. Like, relating it back to being as casual as eye color, I'm not gonna join the hypothetical Very Dark Brown community even though that is my eye color. It's something I have in common with people, sure, but it's often the only thing in common. I remarkably don't get along with most fae I've met and will not join a community specifically composed of them with no other qualifying factors in common because it's never gone well and I've found that I don't even want community about it, despite it being a 'serious' identity for many years. I think it's fine and even normal to experience casual nonhumanity​ and then not seek community about it, and if anything that normalizes it even more: it's such a non-issue that you can just be whatever by yourself, no big self-analysis or community validation or anything needed.

Also yeah, some of them would join communities, but some would form new and less-recognizable ones. This is already happening and a lot of serious sorts of nonhumans categorically hate these communities for being too casual and 'watering down' nonhumanity into what seems like a funny joke to then, but go figure, that is just what normalization looks like. When everyone is doing a thing with a relatively low level of investment, you can't really stop them by telling them they're doing it wrong, because they don't care enough about it to be gatekept in the first place.

Once again I mentioned nonhumanity on a completely unrelated Discord (this one isn't even furry so it's not even adjacent to nonhumanity in any way!) and several people chimed in out of nowhere to say, "Oh yeah, me too." None of them at all in any kind of therian/otherkin/alterhuman/nonhuman communities or anything, just people that would clock as normies about it, except nope they're not.

At this point I'm convinced the number of nonhumans outside the nonhuman communities is several orders of magnitude larger than the number of people inside and the most common way to experience it is totally casually, like an eye color. It's just another funny little thing about you, no big deal. A lot of them seem to feel that this approach makes them 'not really count' but nothing could be further from the truth. If casual nonhumanity is actually the norm like I'm starting to think, being super duper serial about it would make someone Nonhumans Georg, who spends 10000 hours a day dwelling on their identity and also they'd be an outlier who should therefore not be counted.

Except, obviously everyone counts if they say they do. But I think a lot more people could say they do without even breaking a sweat, if they wanted to.

[actias-android]

He likes the time loop actually. He told me so. (Running nonsense joke with myself, don't mind me lol)

But we should break it anyway because damn man that's not fair to the rest of us, share some of those hours per day with the rest of the class, Nonhumans Georg. 24 isn't enough and you're hogging all the extra hours.

Once again I mentioned nonhumanity on a completely unrelated Discord (this one isn't even furry so it's not even adjacent to nonhumanity in any way!) and several people chimed in out of nowhere to say, "Oh yeah, me too." None of them at all in any kind of therian/otherkin/alterhuman/nonhuman communities or anything, just people that would clock as normies about it, except nope they're not.

At this point I'm convinced the number of nonhumans outside the nonhuman communities is several orders of magnitude larger than the number of people inside and the most common way to experience it is totally casually, like an eye color. It's just another funny little thing about you, no big deal. A lot of them seem to feel that this approach makes them 'not really count' but nothing could be further from the truth. If casual nonhumanity is actually the norm like I'm starting to think, being super duper serial about it would make someone Nonhumans Georg, who spends 10000 hours a day dwelling on their identity and also they'd be an outlier who should therefore not be counted.

Except, obviously everyone counts if they say they do. But I think a lot more people could say they do without even breaking a sweat, if they wanted to.

[actias-android]

Once again I mentioned nonhumanity on a completely unrelated Discord (this one isn't even furry so it's not even adjacent to nonhumanity in any way!) and several people chimed in out of nowhere to say, "Oh yeah, me too." None of them at all in any kind of therian/otherkin/alterhuman/nonhuman communities or anything, just people that would clock as normies about it, except nope they're not.

At this point I'm convinced the number of nonhumans outside the nonhuman communities is several orders of magnitude larger than the number of people inside and the most common way to experience it is totally casually, like an eye color. It's just another funny little thing about you, no big deal. A lot of them seem to feel that this approach makes them 'not really count' but nothing could be further from the truth. If casual nonhumanity is actually the norm like I'm starting to think, being super duper serial about it would make someone Nonhumans Georg, who spends 10000 hours a day dwelling on their identity and also they'd be an outlier who should therefore not be counted.

Except, obviously everyone counts if they say they do. But I think a lot more people could say they do without even breaking a sweat, if they wanted to.

[actias-android]

Playing Mega Man isn’t enough anymore I need to become a robot master

[actias-android]

Did these ten seconds change your life and never leave your mind, or are you some kind of boring non-robot "human" person?

[actias-android]

[actias-android]

Mushroom on moss

[actias-android]

can you guys stop interacting with that basedhartman guy. did you guys never learn to not feed the trolls

Also id say interacting with people who hate you that much is definitely a form of self harm

[actias-android]

I wish physical-nonhuman Tumblr would at least get better about posting broad “all these human coworkers/family/peers/complete strangers, I hate being the only nonhuman here” statements. Because I’ll say it again, and harsher this time: You. Don’t. Know. I don’t care if you feel like you’d be able to tell. You can’t. Even for other physical nonhumans, I'm not just referring to otherkin, for the record. You can’t look at the guy sitting on the bus next to you and know enough about him to think “ugh, this fucking human texting on his phone wouldn’t understand my experience.” It might be posting on Tumblr about being a coyote at this very moment. Or he is a human but has experiences of his own that you wouldn't understand, yet you're judging his depth. Vibes of a Redditor calling people NPCs except your word for thoughtless sheeple is "human."

Why are you making the same presumption about random people that you hate random people making about you anyway? It's like when people assume you're a human or you're shallow or one dimensional, it's their bigotry—but when you do it to them, it's... theirs again. I just have to go about my day knowing humans who see me think I’m a human and wondering if therians and zoanthropes who see me are assuming the same thing? How does the constant scorn for the outside appearances around you help your dysphoria? How does broadcasting these assertions to the one group you know are like you, help your dysphoria? Because it certainly doesn’t help mine. You're not the only being in the world. Be less openly judgmental at the very least

[actias-android]

Get fucked, terf.

HRT that finally gives you the plastic, metal, and silicon body you deserve. Humanity Replacement Technology. We need this yesterday. Many are saying this

[actias-android]

I actually have started trying to compile stuff I've written on the topic of nonhumanity into a single location. Very WIP, very carrd, not a whole lot actually there yet because I have a lot to go through and sort and not a lot of time to do it tonight, but still. It's a start.

[actias-android]

Anyway there's no such thing as a bad person. Or a good person, for that matter. There's only a person, and the actions they take. Anyone in disagreement who actually thinks that it's possible to be a type of person who is always bad (or good) is kindly invited to go the fuck away and not bother me. ✌️

Yeah I love it when strangers argue with me in the comments of a week-old post that I didn't make. That's my favorite thing.

[actias-android]

Yeah I love it when strangers argue with me in the comments of a week-old post that I didn't make. That's my favorite thing.

[actias-android]

"Person" is not an Identity

The topic of nonhuman personhood came up in a conversation earlier, which led to me scrolling through the notes on the essay/rant I wrote on the topic at the end of last year [link]. While scrolling through, I saw multiple people express the view that if someone doesn't want to be referred to as a "person", that should be respected.

I would like to kindly but firmly disagree with that view.

Personhood is not a personal identity, and it should not be approached the same way that one approaches identity labels like sexuality, gender, or even species identity. Personhood is a social and legal category, which carries with it significant implications about how (and if) one is treated as a member of society.

Whether it is intended or not, a declaration like "I am not a person" is declaring that one does not see themselves as a being deserving of basic rights and safety. It is saying that they do not see themselves as deserving of dignity and basic respect as a thinking being.

The declaration that an individual (or more often, a specific group) does not have personhood has been used as the justification for all manner of atrocities, up to and including genocide. And I want to be very clear that I am not exaggerating that point. The removal of personhood is a key element of fascist ideology, and is not something to be done casually, even to oneself.

If someone tells me that they use a specific identity label, or set of pronouns, or even choose to not identify as human, I can respect that, and I will do my best to embrace their decision. On the other hand, if someone tells me that they are not a person, I consider that cause for alarm.

The important difference is that personhood is not a personal identity. It is the state of being recognized as worthy of basic dignity, rights, and respect. To deny one's personhood is to deny that you deserve basic rights like freedom from harm, the ability to own property, and the ability to make decisions about your own life and body. I would hope that it's abundantly clear why denying oneself those basic rights is a bad thing.

"Person" is not an identity. It is a fundamental trait that cannot and should not be removed from anyone, even voluntarily. The denial of one's personhood is, at best, incredibly misguided, and at worst incredibly dangerous.

So if you're someone who wants to not be called a "person", I implore you to examine why you feel that way in depth, and consider if the problem isn't being called a person, but the societal assumption that person = human. And if the problem is that societal assumption, the solution isn't to deny your personhood; it's to join the large number of people pushing for society to accept that not every person is human.

[actias-android]

*eg you are a therian and you know someone who has a hearttype of your thereotype

**but i don't know/haven't met anyone that shares it

[actias-android]

If it helps, having done a lot of stuff with fae in the past when I was a lot more actively pagan/witch, as well as just, y'know, being one also, the titles sound gendered but thinking that the Queen, for example, is female in the way humans are female is often a huge mistake in my experience. She/he/they/etc. might be female just for now, or female because the job is female, or not even female at all, and in any case female can mean entirely different things for fae than other creatures.

I think honestly most fae would clock as nonbinary if human terms were applied to them because a lot of the human binary (which doesn't even apply that well to humans, lol) is just...not applicable. Like that's actually the norm in my experience. Granted that's all unverifiable personal gnosis territory, but still. I think being nonbinary would make you fit more, not less, and the mythology is a case of people seeing what they expect to see, since the only way you can really parse spirit interactions is through your own personal worldview.

(Which does mean that I could also be wrong because that's my own worldview in action, and I try to keep that in mind, but that's always the risk you take trying to understand woo-woo stuff like the fae.)

Idk a lot of fairies in media and old art/stories are talked about/depicted as binary gendered and it just doesn't make sense to me that they'd have the exact same societal gendered system that most of human society does. It's like "fae are uncategorizable, diverse, and difficult to truly define so any attempt to do so would be a huge undertaking...but also there are only boy fairies and girl fairies uwu"

The gender binary is not universal even among humans, so you're telling me there'd be no nonbinary fairies? There are no famous nonbinary fairy figures (as far as I know) and I only hear mentions of fairy kings and queens so just...do fae have the gender binary? Heteronormativity? (I know a lot of paganism is incredibly cisheteronormative. Source: I was pagan)

I feel like we kinda have to face the fact that these old fairy stories were told/interpreted/etc. by (mostly binary cis) humans and humans have biases. If these humans believe that there's only two genders then that's all they'll ever see the fae as. It's weird because my fae and nonbinary identities go together hand in hand, generally invisible to binary human society and uncategorizable by them (despite them thinking they can do it) It's strange that I don't feel like I fit into this world partly due to being nonbinary in a binary society (leaning heavily into my changeling identity) but maybe I wouldn't fit in with fae either because of it?